Austin Wintory

How much control or input did you have as far as the implementation of the music into the game?

Austin Wintory responded on 03/04/2012A

For all intents and purposes, I had total control. Every was, of course, ALWAYS in collaboration with thatgamecompany and with Sony. But the implementation ideas always started with me. Sometimes the means of implementation changed based on tech constraints, but usually if it's not exactly how I suggested it it's because someone at thatgamecompany or Sony thought of an improvement and we went with that.

But yes, to me composing and implementation are not separate from one another. In the same way that scoring a film requires a deep understanding of the footage, its construction, subtext, etc, so too does game scoring require anticipating the implementation of the music. At least, IMHO :)

Also the implementation changed a lot over the course of the 3 years ... some cues changed HUGELY in terms of how they were being experienced by the player, even if musically they remained relatively constant.